Iran’s nukesNatanz Attack Sets Back Iran’s Nuclear Operations

The Israeli Sunday sabotage operation against Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz destroyed a well-protected electrical substation housed 40 to 50 meters underground. Iranian officials said the operation destroyed or damaged “thousands of centrifuges.”

Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, the former director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted in Iranian media saying that the sabotage operation seriously damaged both the power distribution system and the cable delivering power to the uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Davani noted that the substation was built deep underground to make it less vulnerable to air and missile strikes.

The Jerusalem Post reports that the attack was carried out with an explosive device which was smuggled into the facility and detonated remotely, probably by a signal from a satellite.

This is the second massive sabotage operation targeting the Natanz nuclear facility. Davani confirmed on Monday that the sabotage attack last July, which caused extensive fire and damage, was carried out with explosives smuggled into a centrifuge assembly facility inside a big office desk. The explosives were activated remotely by a signal from a satellite.

A U.S. intelligence official told theNew York Times that Sunday attack destroyed both the primary and backup electrical systems. The initial explosion set off secondary explosions, causing even more damage.

Alireza Zakani, the director of Iran’s Parliament Research Center, said in a television interview on Tuesday that “thousands of centrifuges” had been destroyed, damaging “most of the enrichment facilities” in the Natanz attack.

Zakani also said that some of the equipment used in the facility had been sent abroad for refurbishing, and “returned with 300 pounds of explosives,” and that explosives had been placed inside a desk, similar to Davani’s claim about the attack in another facility at Natanz last July. 

Davani noted that, in 2012, Israel attacked the Fordow nuclear facility in a similar fashion, targeting power lines from the city of Qom. In order to prevent a similar attack on Natanz, the Natanz facility had 3-months supplies of fuel stored deep underground, so even if the facility were cut off from outside power sources, it could continue to operate.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the destruction of the power supply led to the damage or destruction of enrichment centrifuges by causing them to slow down too rapidly.

The BBC reports that the facility hit on Sunday was built after the attack last July destroyed an older facility at the site. The July 2020 attack caused serious damage to Iran’s nuclear operations, and experts note that even with the new facility, the one targeted in the Sunday attack, Iran had not recovered the ground it had lost by the July b2020 attack.

On Saturday, a day before the most recent attack, Iran began injecting uranium hexafluoride gas into advanced IR-6 and IR-5 centrifuges at Natanz.